Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[MConti]

I'm reading a lovely book that is so motivational and inspiring to me. It's called To Everything there is a Season: A Guide to Starting Over. Beautifully written and crisp. It is philosophical in scope but brief and articulate.

[ficbot]

Reading 'Fear of Fighting' which was a freebie from Kobo. It reminds me a little of 'How to Disappear Completely' which I read from Feedbooks. The author is a bit too flowery for her own good, and the touted 'illustrations' don't really add much, but the book is oddly appealing.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And now back to Grantville Gazette 28...

And up to the usual standard. Fun stories, and good (if a bit heavy) fact articles. An amazing shared universe. If you've not met it before, do start with the first book in the sequence – a novel: 1632. It's in the Baen free library, and if you like it you'll probably like the others.

Some more classic SF now - The Game of Stars and Comets by Andre Norton

[BenG]

I saw the movie Easy Virtue last night. I loved it and bought a volume of Noel Coward's plays this morning.

[shattler]

Just finished "Oh. My. Gods" by Tera Lynn Childs. It was good at the beginning but it got a little too predictable and fluffy at the end.

Just starting "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" by Seth Grahame-Smith. This one looks pretty interesting.

[BenG]

I read that Tim Burton bought the film rights to ALVH.

[dreams]

Originally Posted by khlong9

I have just finished reading "All American Kidd" ebook from Smashwords by Rod Poulin I liked it so much I was inspired to give a glowing review only to find that it had been withdrawn reason not given however if you can get it elsewhere it's well worth a read racy in parts but very funny and some recognisable family situations and emotions
Keith

It's back at smashwords. I saw it and remembered your post.

[ficbot]

Finished a Kobo freebie, 'Fear of Fighting.' It was just okay. I am now reading '100 Stories for Haiti.' Good so far, depending on the story

[MelC]

Time to catch up on my book reports - Since GWTW (which I loved in case you haven't seen me raving about it on umpteen other threads - I had it listed as a 3 star on Goodreads from my vague recollection from the first time I read it and have now updated it to a solid 5), I have read My Sister's Keeper - great idea, morally and perception challenging book but... there is just something about Jodi Piccoult. This is the second book of hers I have read and I want to like her, I love the topics she takes on and the books always have so much potential but somehow I just end up feeling disappointed in the execution starting at about halfway through. I just don't think her books live up to their potential.

Currently reading Grave Peril, the fourth in the Dresden Files series.

Mel

[FlorenceArt]

Still mired in a romance swamp At least this time it's one I haven't read before: "K." by Mary Rinehart. I like it so far, better than The Circular Staircase.

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Still mired in a romance swamp At least this time it's one I haven't read before: "K." by Mary Rinehart. I like it so far, better than The Circular Staircase.

I don't know if it's age, or reading too many other mystery writers, but I find Rinehart's books tedious now - "The Circular Staircase" was just plain awkward, and "The Bat" almost silly.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

I don't know if it's age, or reading too many other mystery writers, but I find Rinehart's books tedious now - "The Circular Staircase" was just plain awkward, and "The Bat" almost silly.

Well, what we expect from a book changes with time, I suppose that's what happened to you. I liked The Circular Staircase, but I found the style a bit awkward, as you say, and the Agatha Christie kind of mystery is not really my type. Haven't read The Bat, maybe I'll try it to see how I like it

[Libby Cone]

I'm astonished because my staid British publisher, Duckworth, just released a Kindle edition of my first book, War on the Margins. This is after they kept saying they didn't do digital. So it's finally available in the US. They even enabled text-to-speech!

[WT Sharpe]

I just finished reading Jew Boy by Alan Kaufman. It is a work that is frequently dark, occasionally hopeful, and always thoroughly readable. James Sullivan of the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review calls it “a classic, if wholly unconventional, American coming-of-age story."

Most folks here at MobileRead will remember Mr. Kaufman from his heated exchanges with several of us over his remarks in an article he wrote for Evergreen Review #120 entitled “The Electronic Book Burning.” Comments in that article such as “All physical books must go up the chimney stack. Such was the methodology of the SS,” “Hi-tech propagandists [sic] tell us that...society would simply be better-off altogether if we euthanized it even as we begin to carry around, like good little Aryans, whole libraries in our pockets, downloaded on the Uber-Kindle,” and “the bookstore…is like the synagogue under Hitler,” did little to endear him to folks here at MobileRead. He personally told MobileRead members that the ebook revolution represented not a Gutenberg moment but a “Nuremberg moment,” referred to us as “a generatiton [sic] of machine-addicted barbarians,” and said that the “efforts of techno-fascists to make the Book into the reviled Jew of our culture is no less insidious then the campaign waged in WWII by Nazi Germany.”

Although we learned in those exchanges that he is the son of a woman who survived the Holocaust, we didn’t hear of his undeserved beatings by her as a child, his youthful attempts to deny his heritage, his nervous breakdown in the midst of an Israeli war zone, his failed marriages, his battles with alcoholism, or his current sobriety. His has not been an easy life, and certainly not always an honorable one, but he has written a riveting and unblinkingly honest account of it in Jew Boy.

In Corinne (1807), Madame de Staël wrote “To understand all makes one tolerant." ("Tout comprendre rend trés indulgent.") I’m not sure that’s always true, and I’m far from certain that its true in this particular case; but if you’re curious to find out what makes someone like Kaufman tick, you could hardly do better than read this amazing autobiographical account.

For obvious reasons, the book is not available as an ebook.

One thing I believe is undeniable. Whatever your personal feelings about Kaufman, he is a remarkably talented writer and poet with an incredible talent for expression. I highly recommend Jew Boy

And Alan Kaufman, if you’re still monitoring our posts here, I have a personal message. To paraphrase what an insightful author once wrote,

MobileRead members are wonderful and gifted people. We are not Nazis. We are not the enemy. We are only people who like reading, and have discovered the joys and convenience of doing it on dedicated electronic devices.

Sir, I wish you happiness, success, and fulfillment.

— Tom

[kennyc]

Thanks for that review/followup Tom.